Funerals of the Children
by Reigning Rats
Summary: It's been nine years and the memory of it all still plagues America. 9/11 One-shot, America-centric.


It's a dull ache, unremarkable and otherwise inconsequential, but it means so very much to him—however insignificant the meaning truly is to others. They say he must have been dramatic, acted like a child throwing a fit as one of his toys were tossed away into the trash to be dumped into a monstrous pile of filth. He knows what they do not and that is enough even if it brings forth another ache, stronger but just as detached. Speculations and drawn out lies; rumors poisoning lips and scalding reputations. That is alright with him. He understands and knows and accepts it.

New York City, Afghanistan, Ramsin Yuseb, George W. Bush: eleven.

At the time, it had been amusing. Snow fell lightly from darkened clouds and the world took on a muted sheen of (impersonal) gray. A space heater hummed between his feet, rhythmically filling the drone of silence as his fingers quietly _clack clacked _against computer keys. Christmas would be arriving soon. It made him smile.

The realization was an accident, pure chance and a dive into convoluted fantasy as he indulged his curiosity for the sake of knowing and breaking the monotonous stream of work related mail flooding his inbox. Counting, _one two three_, silently to himself, _four five six_, he went through, _seven eight nine_, each word then reread again and again and again, _ten_, till his vision blurred and mouth ran dry, _eleven_. The husk of an epiphany hit him and he had laughed. The sound was bitter and a chill danced across his flesh as he pulled the blanket closer, tighter, so he could feel again as a wave of numbing apathy wormed into his core.

9 + 2. 6 + 5. 9 + 1 + 1. 2 + 5 + 4, repeat.

The phone had rung then. Chiming all too loudly. Invading his skull and pounding out awareness. So he laughed and answered, carrying on a conversation with some nameless government aid as his heart _th-th-thumped _a stuttering manifestation of the inner turmoil he carefully kept his consciousness far, far away from in a land where there were clear streams, endless forests, and a sun that never seemed to set as he basked in the warmth and drank in something wholly pure.

Love was a lie and lying was love. America loved(_loathed_) himself far too much to be honest. So each day, he told himself, _'It's the right thing. A man's gotta do what a man has to do. Gotta save them from themselves_.'

Deceiving himself and believing the treachery, he continued on and breathed life into a cause the world saw as unfit. '_For their own good_,' he always reasoned. They would question as to his reasons, his _country's _reasons, and each time he would spout another litany of self-grandeur and carefully concealed intentions.

Carefully covering the corpse and promising that 'No, no, I'll never do it again, I swear,' honestly never did work. America soon discovered this law of human nature when he was drawn once more to his computer, a laptop this time, as he set the mechanical wonder on his lap and stared at a blank screen. Tempting, so tempting, and his chest began to ache once more. The plastic was cool beneath the pad of his thumb as the screen burst forth in blues and green and reds and yellows and life.

_It's a beautiful day. The sky is blue. There are few clusters of clouds. A breeze blows in from the shoreline and cools what would have otherwise been an intensely hot day. There's a reflection in the glass and he is smiling. There's the rustle of fabric and the scent of city life as he shifts and dangling his legs from the open window. Safety be damned; he wants to enjoy the morning lull before all hell breaks loose and the real rush begins on the streets below._

_'_The Hudson looks great_,' he thinks lazily, fingers drumming against the wood of the sill. There's coffee brewing and he can't wait to taste it._

_It's 8:40 and he thinks the sky is beautiful._

_A thundering roar breaks the serene din of New York. At the time, he thought it odd but bearable. There were always planes flying overheard and he used to love the roar of the engines - _He cannot stand the _whoosh_ of a jet any longer. No one has questioned his sudden reluctance to fly - _He hears it before he sees it and he sees it before his heart plummets and weights settle in his limbs as his fingers stop drumming and lungs cease expanding. He cannot breathe and thinks it a dream. It must be a dream. The day is too tranquil to be anything else._

_The sun against his right cheek, shadows keeping him lightly veiled like a waiting bride all else save for that patch of golden warmth, is real. The intoxicating call of soon to come caffeine and creamer and artificial sugar is real. The way his body seizes and mind misfires is real and he can feel himself dying inside, if only a little, as he watches the Boeing soar through a limitless expanse of polluted blues and rotting dreams - _But he still thinks the day was beautiful. From the rise to the fall, the day was _perfect_. Later he could recollect wanting to dive into the Hudson River and only surface when the burn of his lungs forced him to.

_There are flames now and a billow of smoke too clotted with ash and dust and debris to see through. Glass has shattered and he can hear it. The ground seems to shake as he grips the edge of the window and presses his back against the wooden frame. It had hurt at the time but there is a far worse burn, like the scald of boiled water against the delicate skin of a wrist, rendering coherent thought useless and reality relative. He knows now it is a trick of the mind. In the distance, he can see F-15's closing in and thought, '_Stop them, stop it, dosomething_God_dosomethingsomethingsomething_' as he watches another Boeing rip through the second tower. He can see bits of the plane burst forth and soar to the streets below. He thinks the streets have never been sullied as they are now._

He knows the site address by heart and jabs the keys in a noisy fashion, impatient but unshaken. The scroll bar cannot move vast enough and he finds himself jostling his leg like a wary predator staring down the fangs of an animal much larger and more frightening than itself. Let the end come, the animal concedes, I am ready. So is America.

The instructions are simple enough. Open up a word document.

Q33 NY: flight number of the first plane.

48, WINGDINGS 1.

And his blood runs cold and there's something curling within the pit of his belly and it's unpleasant and he wants it to stop but it doesn't and he knows he's going mad so he laughs. It hurts. He laughs and it hurts but the sound rings out through the still, cloying air of his Nevada cottage.

There is nothing but this, he and his laptop and coincidence too eerie to deny and so unfathomably inconceivable he can't bring himself to believe it. Fact and fiction meld within one another and he can't tell what was real that day. The memories are repressed but he can remember. Remembrance brings a sheen of weariness about his features and clouds the aspirations in his eyes. The malcontent caused makes him shut his eyes and think of stallions and stars and young girls clutching their mother's sleeve and kittens toppling over their siblings as they all clamor for an owner and the wind of the plains as the tall grass shifts in a monumental swell before standing tall once more and-

_Through the fire and smoke and natural smog and blinding light, he can see them jumping. He thinks it's stupid, but backtracks and comes to the conclusion that becoming a crumpled mass of flesh and bone and tissue is preferable to being licked by flames and slowly consumed by an end none of them could have predicted. There's screaming. He's sure he can hear it and the edges of his nerves fray. Disembodied, he is released from the hell of his physical being and comes to rest on Ground Zero. There is no pain here, only reserved resentment and rage._

_He can see a spectrum of generations clustered around televisions sets as they watch live broadcasts of the destruction and he thinks they're sitting on the edges of their seats and worrying their bottom lips as something roots within them but does not blossom. Perhaps it will be in bloom tomorrow but he cannot be sure. Nothing is sure here. Nothing is real yet he can touch the soft skin of a young girl's cheek and feel her wracking sobs as she shudders and screams that she wants to see her father. He knows she never will but she doesn't and he doesn't want to break her heart. There will be enough heartbreak tomorrow when the acid eats through their doubts and hopes and leaves only fears and mistrust and anguish._

_The girl is gone and he knows it isn't real. He's sitting in his apartment, now half in and half out an open window in the Eastern corner of his apartment next to a stack of aging comics and films he has yet to see. The carpet is a dull cream, stained from repeated fumbles with various substances, and the walls are an off white, covered in the works of Andy Warhol and Norman Rockwell and Susan Rothenberg and so many unnamed amateur artists he can no longer keep the names straight. That is real and he knows it but he allows himself to be disillusioned and accept this surreal reality as the truth._

_There are police men, firefights, and brave on lookers who usher the workers of the Twin Towers out. They're screaming, shouting, terror and terror and terror and he can't stop watching. A man has jumped from one of the higher floors. He lands upon a man and they both die. It is unfortunate but here, with no real body to feel no real pain, he cannot find the will to care and watches on. Things are numb; he enjoys it._

_The South Tower comes down. People are buried. The fine dust that gushes across the surrounding area does not harm him but he knows it will hurt those around them, perhaps kill them. They struggle to avoid the collapse, heroes and victims and unnamed citizens who had nothing on their mind but going to work and getting through life earlier that morning. Some succeed and escape the avalanche, some are lost and he knows most won't be seen again: not as they were before the rumble crushed their ribcages and bits of glass and dust and sand cut their lungs till they're coughing up blood and spitting out the remnants of their own respiratory system. He wishes that everyone of them has their head crushed so they don't have to endure long. He wishes he were a better person and could stop himself from thinking those things._

_As a nation he is powerful but as a man he is weak; the weakness claws at him and makes him retreat further within himself._

_Time passes and the chaos does not change. The North Tower comes down and the process is repeated and he hates himself. Wishes are nothing and he knows it, is thankful for it. Those who had jumped dead; those who burned are dead; those entombed in concrete and steel are dead; those breathing in the now noxious air will be dead. He cannot comprehend the tally already being written up for official papers and clinically unsympathetic reports. There have been more lost and he has seen more death than this but a chord is struck and he's thrust back within his own body._

_The news is on and he wonders when that happened. Voices of the newscasters fall on deaf ears as he watches the faces and images melt into an incomprehensible puddle of information and supposed fact. He cannot be sure what is real or not but he realizes, vaguely, that he is holding the remote and standing in the center of his living room._

_The breeze is gentle as it flutters through the open window and it smells of something akin to corruption and malcontent. The nauseating scent is masked by already brewed coffee, still hot and waiting to be poured for a man in desperate need of a pick me up and something to take his mind from the inward cave in nestled deep in his chest. There is no blood and no outward sign of distress. He stares blankly and feels the cries of his citizens as they scramble to assemble some sort of understanding as whispers of on coming war ghost across moistened, unmoving lips and hands wring together fretfully as they contemplate how their lives will change. This is not war; most will be unaffected and he knows this._

_Rough. That's what the carpeting is. It's old and worn down, compacted and unpleasant to lie flush against. As his feet begin to move restlessly, the material cuts across the sensitive underside of his foot in a soothing, repetitive motion. His phone is ringing but he is ignoring it. The news is on, he loves watching the news._

_Glancing with a hooded gaze, he can see the sky and no longer wants to participate in its weightless freedom. That he will give - _and he did give it up _- if only to reassemble some sort of normality for he is sure, if he were to step into the cockpit of another aircraft, he would feel disappointment. The fighters had not stopped the destruction and the liners had not been merciful. Mothers were dead and fathers and sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts and cousins and he can't think about it now because the sky looks so beautiful and his eyes are transfixed till smoke billows across the horizon and he cannot look any longer at what used to be his favorite skyline._

_Off white and cream and stains. Couches and recliners and a coffee table. Movies and video games and books and comics. A lamp on the side table. Dirty dishes sitting on the seat of a wooden stool. An entertainment unit equipped with a thirty-two inch splurge, speakers, and consoles new and old alike._

_This is real and he knows it._

_This is where he is and where he belongs._

_But he pours himself a cup of coffee, he packs that night, and he leaves New York by bus the next morning and he does not look back because he's unsure what forcefully smothered emotions will bubble up and boil over like milk from an over heated pan. His mouth tastes of something foul and sour as he picks a seat near the back, rests his head against the worn leather of the seat back, and allows himself to drift off into a surprisingly restful slumber. When he wakes, New York is gone and he can disassociate from what has happened. A lingering thought plagues him and he allows himself to voice it though no one listens._

"Thank God it wasn't Indian Point," America laughs and it hurts.

The laptop rests beside him as he clutches his sides and attempts to reign in sanity. The task is more difficult than he cares to admit. His phone is ringing and America reaches for it. The Blackberry is warm; it has been sitting in the sunlight for too long. He presses send and shoves the plastic against his ear regardless, grateful for the ache of distraction as he manages a wobbling, "H-h-hello?"

He is still laughing.

There is a pause on the other line, "America, you daft fool, what has gotten you into such a tizzy?"

America straightens and cuts off the hollow echo sounding from his throat as he throws an arm across the back of the sofa and props a leg onto the coffee table. He cannot help quietly snickering into the collar of his shirt as he says, "Just getting my crazy on."

* * *

**Notes: **New York City, Afghanistan, Ramsin Yuseb, George W. Bush all have 11 letters. 9 + 2, 6 + 5, 9 + 1 + 1, 2 + 5 + 4 all add up to 11. Q33 NY: flight number of the first plane, 48, WINGDINGS 1 in a word document show a plane, two buildings, a skull and cross bones, and the Star of David in that order. Official reports by the US government state that they believed the War on Terror was necessary for the safety and security of the US as well as the safety and security of the global community. At 8:46 AM the first plane struck the North Tower; the planes were a Boeing 767-223ER and Boeing 767-222 respectively. NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, was not notified when they discovered a hijacking was in progress. The title comes from a quote by former President George Bush on the 9/11 attacks: "Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children."

NORAD stalled scrambling for six minutes. Two F-15 fighter jets few at approximately 23.9% of their top speed when going to intercept the hijacked planes. If protocol had been followed and the fighters had flown at top speed, the Boeing aircrafts could have been stopped. While the attack was being broadcast, many Americans turned on the news and watched live feed of the event, even in schools. Warhol, Rockwell and Rothenberg are all famous American artists. A man did jump from one of the towers and land on a fire fighter; both were killed. The South Tower, despite being hit second, was the first to fall, followed by the North Tower. When the towers fell, many employees and rescue workers were buried under the rumble; many were either never found or dead. Indian Point is about 7 or so minutes from the Twin Towers and a nuclear power stations with 2 online and 1 offline and 65 years worth of accumulated nuclear waste; it's surrounded by the more densely populated area in the US. If Indian Point had been hit, an excess of 20 million would have died and the land would have been toxic for thousands of years. The Towers were also struck when around 30,000 people were inside rather than the peak of noon when around 50,000 would have been inside.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry about the whole updating this thing. I forgot to denote where the title came from. Warning, this may contain sensitive materials. Oh, wait, you probably already read it. My bad~. Remember, flame me, I'll flame you. Anyway, this is my tribute to 9/11. I was in the States when it occurred, so I felt I should do at least a little something. I'm not going to be on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so I decided to post it now. Edited by Shatterdoll. If you want the websites where I retrieved my information, let me know and I'll get those to you. Read, review.**


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